% Place acknowledgments below.
\setstretch{1.5}I am extremely grateful to my advisor, Professor Yuan Xie, for
his enormous and unconditional guidance and help on both professional and
personal affairs since I came to Penn State. He has led me step by step to
become an individual researcher. He has provided me a lot of opportunities to
meet with leading experts in my research area. As my role model, he always
thinks more of others, and is eager to help me succeed.

I would like to thank Professor Mary Jane Irwin and Professor Vijay Narayanan
for their invaluable advises, which help me grow in both my research and my
personality. I am also very grateful to Professor Suman Datta and Professor
Sencun Zhu for serving on my Ph.D. thesis committee and providing me insightful
comments on my research work.

I would like to thank Dr. Andres Takach for his great support and invaluable
advises while I was an intern at Mentor Graphics.

I would like to thank the co-authors of my research papers, Professor Yu Wang
from Tsinghua University, Dr. Eren Kursun from IBM Research, Professor
Krishnendu Chakrabarty from Duke University, Dr. Alan Su from Synopsys, for the
great collaborations and their great help.

I also want to thank my colleges and friends, Guangyu Sun, Xiaoxia Wu, Jin
Ouyang, Dimin Niu, Xiangyu Dong, Tao Zhang, Jing Xie, Jishen Zhao, Qiaoshao
Zou, Hsiang-Yun Cheng, Ding Yang, Kevin Irick, Mike Debole, and Soumya
Eachempati, for leaving me pleasant and unforgettable memories during my life
in Penn State.

Finally, I would like to thank my family, especially my wife Congcong Li. We
had been in a long-distance relationship in the last four years. Without her
unconditional love and support I would not have been able to complete my Ph.D.
study.
